ROOKE 



ROOT 



799 



female assiduously during incubation, and some- 

 times takes her place on the nest. Both parents 

 bring food to their young ones, and the nestlings 

 are provided with little stones essential to the 

 grinding of the food in the gizzard. The rook 

 can be tamed, and may exhibit something of the 

 imitative power possessed by several related birds. 

 While rooks are useful in so far as they destroy 



Rook (Corciu frugileyus). 



many injurious insects and grubs, they sometimes 

 damage trees by breaking off the twigs, they root up 

 grass and young com, and do other damage to the 

 crops. In moderate numbers they are useful, but 

 in multitudes they are compelled to leave their 

 natural food and become injurious. 



Rooke, SIR GEORGE, British admiral, was born 

 in 1650, near Canterbury, at the country-seat of 

 his father, Sir William Rooke. Entering the navy, 

 he found himself at thirty a post-captain, and in 

 1689 was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral of 

 the red. He took part in the action off Beachy 

 Head lietween the Earl of Torrington and a French 

 fleet under Tourville ; and in 1692 he distinguished 

 himself greatly in the memorable battle off Cape 

 La Hogue, fought l>etween the French fleet and 

 the combined English and Dutch force under 

 Admiral Russell. For this he received the rank of 

 vice-admiral of the red, knighthood, and a pension 

 of 1000 a year. In 1702 he commanded the expe- 

 dition against Cadiz, and destroyed the Plate-fleet 

 in the port of Vigo. In conjunction with Sir 

 Cloudesley Shovel he accomplished the capture of 

 Gibraltar, 21st July 1704. On the 9th August of 

 the same year he engaged oft' Malaga a much 

 heavier French fleet under the Comte de Toulouse, 

 and fought one of the bloodiest of naval battles, 

 tin 1 honours of which fairly remained with the 

 English, though the escape of the enemy's fleet 

 through the hazy weather rendered it a somewhat 

 barren triumph. The struggle lasted through 

 nearly a whole day ; the French loss was upwards 

 of 3000, the English upwards of 2000 men. Sir 

 George was received with marked distinction by 

 Queen Anne, but, finding the government hostile to 

 him on political grounds, retired, and led the life 

 of a Kentish gentleman till his death, 24th January 

 1709. See his Journal, edited by Oscar Browning 

 tor the Navy Records Society ( 1897). 



Roon, ALBRECHT THEODOR EMIL, COUNT VON, 

 Prussian soldier, was born at Pleushagen near 

 Kolberg in Pomerania on 30th April 1803, entered 

 the army in 1821, was appointed in 1827 to teach 

 in the cadet school of Berlin, and joined the general 

 staff in 1833. He held amongst other positions 

 that of topographer in the general staff surveys 

 (1833-35), teacher in the military academy (1835), 

 military tutor to Prince Frederick-Charles ( 1843), 

 an:i member of the commission for reorganising the 



Prussian army ( 1859 ). He carried the bill for army 

 reform through the House of Representatives ; his 

 labours in reorganisation produced brilliant results 

 in the great wars of 1866 and 1870-71. . He was 

 made war minister in 1859, and marine minister in 

 1861, was created count in 1871, and received the 

 rank of field-marshal in 1873. For a few months 

 he was president of the Prussian cabinet, retiring 

 in November 1873. He died in Berlin 23d February 

 1879. A pupil of Karl Ritter (q.v.), Von Roon 

 used his teacher's methods in an elementary general 

 geography (12th ed. 1868) and a more advanced 

 work dealing with general geography, ethnology, 

 and politics (3d ed. 1847-55). See Life by Von 

 Gossler (1879), an anonymous Life (Guttersloh, 

 1888), and Deutsche Revue (1890-91). 



Roosevelt, THEODORE, American statesman 

 and author, was born in New York City, October 

 27, 1858. Graduated from Harvard College in 1880, 

 he soon took active part in the politics of his city 

 and state. He was appointed assistant-secretary 

 of the navy in 1897, but in 1898 became lieutenant- 

 colonel of a cavalry regiment (the 'Rough Riders') 

 recruited largely from among the cattlemen of the 

 western plains, and noted for its part in the fight- 

 ing before Santiago de Cuba ; he was soon made full 

 coloneL In November 1898 he was elected governor 

 of New York, and in 1900, vice-president of the 

 United States ; he succeeded Mr M'Kinley as presi- 

 dent in 1901, upon the assassination of the latter. 

 His published works include volumes of hunting 

 and ranching experiences, history, and biographies. 



Root, in its physiological rather than its strictly 

 morphological sense, is that part of the plant which 

 ( 1) absorbs nourishment from the soil or from water 

 and not from the air, (2) fixes the plant to the earth, 

 (3) and grows, as a rule, dovmu-ards into the earth, 

 and away from the light, not tipirards, and towards 

 the light, as ' shoots do ; this will include the com- 

 plex roots of the seed plants, the rhizoids of crypto- 

 gams, and the mycelia of fungi, in contradistinction 

 to all those parts of plants which grow upwards 

 towards the light and produce reproductive organs, 

 which may conveniently be called shoots. But 

 organs morphologically of the same kind may have 

 different forms and different functions ; thus shoots 

 may function as roots, and roots may grow up into 

 the air as shoots. Further information as to the 

 physiology of roots will be found in the article 

 upon VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY ; in this article it is 

 chiefly the morphology of roots that will be dealt 

 with. 



As the leaf surface of a seed plant is developed 

 the root system grows ; in a large sunflower it 

 occupies at>out one cubic yard, in a large tree 

 hundreds of cubic yards. This system, resulting 

 from the branching of the primary, secondary, and 

 other roots, the ultimate divisions consisting of 

 root-hairs, is so complete that scarcely the space of 

 a quarter cubic incn is unoccupied. Abundance 

 of water, to balance the transpiration, and of salts, 

 for other purposes of plant-life, is thus secured. 

 The root system of aquatic plants is small, water 

 being easily obtained and transpiration slight. 



All roots at first are thin hair-like organs ; the 

 greater thickness that those of the dicotyledons 

 attain is due to a secondary growth. The thickened 

 roots serve only as organs of attachment, and of 

 course as conducting channels, but not at all as 

 organs of absorption. These absorbing parts, root- 

 hairs, are .protuberances of the outer layer of cell 

 of the roots. They arise shortly behind the grow- 

 ing tip, and they die off in a few days, so that only 

 an inch or two of root bears root-hairs. In this- 

 way the root-hairs are continually brought into con- 

 tact with portions of untouched soil. 



A longitudinal section near the apex of a root 

 of a seed plant shows the following arrangement of 



